


Nothing Like This Has Ever Happened To Mark Savage

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (TV)
Genre: Big Gay Mobsters, Gay Bar, M/M, POV First Person, Partners to Lovers, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 02:21:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17336864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: E.L. may be comfortable with 'undercover work', but Lionel is used to being himself-- more or less. He finds himself agreeing to this plan anyway.





	Nothing Like This Has Ever Happened To Mark Savage

    “It’s a what bar?” I ask. Funny, I don’t remember my voice being that high.

 

    He gives me that look, which says either that he’s sympathetic to me or amused by me, or both. Maybe both.

 

    Usually, I think, both.

 

    “It’s a gay bar.”

 

    I swallow. “I’ve never been in one of those.”

 

    “I never suggested otherwise. Look, if you don’t think you can go in, I can handle it.”

 

    I jump halfway out of my chair, and land halfway back in it, grabbing onto my desk to keep from winding up on the floor. “No, no-- oh, no, I can’t-- You can’t, alone? There’s a mobster in there! A mobster who’s, uh…”

 

    “Gay?”

 

    “Dangerous. But also, yes, gay, he’s apparently that. It doesn’t make him less dangerous!”

 

    “I never suggested otherwise.” He raises his eyebrows. My face feels hot. I didn’t land on the floor, but my stomach sure did. He takes me in and sighs. “And I do _hate_ to say it, but if only one of us was going to be going into someplace dangerous, it shouldn’t be you. You and danger, you never keep your head down. But all right, give me a day or two and I’ll figure out how to get you in.”

 

    “Do you not just… walk in? Is there a password? Do you need to get the password? Ohh, I’ve never been to a bar with a password, ohh, I’ve always wanted to!”

 

    “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t think they’ve had a password since the mid-seventies, I’m more concerned with how you’re going to handle just walking into a bar where a man might ask you to dance and you might faint on the spot.”

 

    “They’re not going to ask me-- Me?” I ask, gesturing to… well, to me, an improbable target for male affection. At least, no man has ever asked me anything of that nature before, I’d have noticed.

 

    I’d have been flattered.

 

    Potentially.

   

    I mean, I would have said no, but I might have imagined saying yes later, secretly, quietly. Potentially.

 

    We all imagine things. I imagine a lot of things. Most of them mean very little.

 

    I’m an improbable target for most affections. I do all right. I mean I do better than I mean to, with girls. Or, I do… I do all right. I mean I _do_ mean to. I mean to do well and I know all the things I should say and do and think and feel, and so I say things and on occasion I do things, I think things on and off, and I feel… not the corresponding things. I could fool myself, but it evaporates pretty quick.

 

    “Someone might ask you.” He shrugs. “You’ve got a nice face.”

 

    I’ve got a nice face.

 

    Do I have a nice face?

 

    It’s kind of hot and vaguely itchy at the moment, like it would rather not be a part of me and having this conversation and I can’t blame it for that. I scratch at my cheek, distracted.

 

    “Well dancing’s fine, I wouldn’t faint over just dancing.”

 

    “Oh, no? You went up an octave just learning what kind of place it was.”

 

    “Oh, ha ha, it is to laugh.” I roll my eyes. “I’m nervous. I have every right to be. I’m out of my depth, is that what you wanted to hear? You want me to admit it, I’m out of my depth. Well, uh, uh, so I am, so I’m _nervous_.”

 

    “I can hack it alone, you don’t have to go. I mean, what this needs is a charm offensive, not a fight--”

 

    “Well I can be charming!”

 

    “You don’t want to flirt with any mobsters.”

 

    “Well, no, mobsters are, are-- by definition!-- not good people, and I would hate to give someone the wrong impression by making overtures I had no intention of following through on, or to in particular lead on a man who’d like to give a man like me a concrete overcoat-- What? What is so funny about that?”

 

    “Nothing. You’ve got nothing to prove. I know it’s not the mob that’s got you nervous. It should be the mob that’s got you nervous! But it isn’t, you… you’d walk right up to the guy and warn him about your black belt. You’re nervous about the other thing.”

 

    “Well I’m out of my depth with that.”

 

    “Yeah.” He sighs. “Of course it would be easy if you played piano.”

 

    “I do play the piano!” I nod, jumping out of my chair again, coming around the desk. Hitting my thigh against my desk and then landing against his desk a little.

 

    “Well, why didn’t you say so?” He catches me a little, too, hand at my waist. I still collapse against his desk when my feet go sort of out from under me, but he keeps my hip from banging into the edge.

 

    “You never mentioned the piano before, in all this!”

 

    “Well, _you_ might have mentioned it.” He shrugs, making sure I’m solidly on my feet before his hand slides away, the other patting my shoulder. “Any other useful skills you’ve been hiding?”

 

    “Well, when I think they might come in useful, I don’t hide them. How is the piano helpful?”

   

    “That’s the kind of place it is. Classy, upscale kind of joint. So we get in as a music act, no one asks the piano player to dance. And if anyone does come on too strong, you tell ‘em your partner’s the jealous type.”

 

    It takes me a minute for the meaning to filter through-- my first thought is that if we’re undercover, no one would know I have an investigative partner. My second thought is that it wouldn’t matter much to a prospective suitor if my partner in a musical double act had a jealous streak. My third thought is right on the money, we’re going to pretend to be _involved_.

 

    “Partner. Right. And… and then no one else, _right_.”

 

    “Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

 

    “No, no, I think that’s an excellent idea, actually, a-- I mean, yes. I always do aim... out of my league. I don’t think I need to tell people you’re the jealous type, I think I could just-- You know, maybe I’m a one-fella kind of a guy. I think they’d understand.”

 

    He smiles at that, shaking his head. “Sure. You’re a one-fella guy. Old-fashioned. Sweet.”

 

    “Do we need to get our story straight for this, I mean… Is there anything we need to iron out? I guess I shouldn’t give the name on the sign if we’re undercover, I’m not great with undercover--”

 

    “No, you should definitely not give the mob the name on the sign, or in any way mention that you’re a private detective, and maybe you let me do the talking. When we go in there, your name is Sam.”

 

    “Oh, sure. ‘If she can take it, I can take it’?”

 

    “And my name is… also Sam. We met at the local music store, going over the sheet music rack. Someone called out ‘hey, Sam’, we both turned, our eyes met. We laughed. You said ‘Sam Reuben’, and I said ‘oh, like the sandwich. Sam Cobb’, and you said ‘oh, like the salad’, and the rest is history.”

 

    “Oh, gosh, we’re cute.” I grin-- it’s goofy, I can feel it, but I mean, I like a good story and all… and there’s a difference between schemes and undercover work! I could be excused the occasional goofy look. “Which one of us did they want? Whoever called out?”

 

    “A third Sam, unrelated.”

 

    “You just come up with this stuff, huh?”

 

    “See, aren’t you glad you have me now?”

 

    “Well I usually am.”

 

    He smiles a little harder for half a second, before turning for the door.

 

    “You should be, I’m a gift. Look, I’ll get things set up, you meet me tonight at seven-- make it seven thirty-- we’ll practice.”

 

    “Sure thing, yeah, practice. Seven thirty.” I nod. “I guess we should meet at my place? For the piano, I mean.”

 

    “You have a piano at your place now? That’s going to make practice a lot easier.”

 

    “My mother had it sent over, it’s been-- there’s not really much room to put it, but I mean I have it.”

   

    “All right, well, we’ll re-arrange your furniture, then. Apparently.”

 

    It shouldn’t make me nervous. He’s been over at my place countless times in the year we’ve worked together. He’s stayed a night on the couch more than once when working a case. He’s let himself in and all. He lived with me for a little while! There’s no room in the house he hasn’t been in at least in passing, why I should feel nervous about his coming over to practice music. Or to re-arrange furniture. Apparently. He didn’t re-arrange furniture when he lived here, but I mean. Even so!

 

    When he does come over, it’s with Chinese food in hand, which is unexpected but very welcome, and I handle drinks. He puts the radio on as I do, we don’t talk about the undercover aspect of the case as we eat-- he gets me going about the book I’m on, tells a story about some old exploits which I would disapprove of strongly if I believed a word of it, but really we just laugh about nothing much.

 

    As for rearranging the furniture, well… we manage. It’s pretty cramped, and not exactly functional as a living room… chairs stacked in the corner, couch moved to the opposite side of the room and blocking off the bedroom, but I can climb over the couch fine, I can’t climb over the piano I’d brought out of storage, so that goes where the couch was, and so here we are.

 

    “I am not moving that couch again at the end of the night.” He groans, collapsing onto it.

 

    “No, neither am I, I figure I can live like this for a week. If it takes a week. I don’t know…” I shrug. “However long it takes.”

 

    He regards the sofa he’s on, and regards me, shaking his head. “Well, it’s not going to take that long. Miss Marianne--”

   

    “Missus.”

 

    “Not for long, buddy, with what she’s about to learn about her husband.”

 

    “You think she’ll leave him?”

 

    “Do I think she’ll leave him? Do I think she’ll-- Yes, I think she’ll leave him.”

 

    “I mean, there’s something to be said for security, years of companionship…”

 

    “She suspects her husband is a mild mannered accountant having an affair with a younger woman, her husband is a mobster who hangs out in a gay bar. I don’t see a lot of motivation for her staying. You marry a girl and find out she’s carrying on with another woman, would that be all hunky-dory?”

 

    “It might be. Not if she was a mobster, no, I agree that should be a-- But Marianne relies on her husband, she’s a housewife, leaving’s not so simple, and I think she could be forgiven for thinking about her own survival and not the ethics of remaining in a sham marriage…” I argue. And were I to be completely honest-- has it taken me thirty years on this earth to come to this complete honesty?-- the ideal wife for me probably would be one who’s carrying on with another woman. I could be useful somehow in that kind of an arrangement. Maybe I’d never look for love myself but I wouldn’t blame a girl...

 

    “Or she can pick someone up on the rebound while she’s in her prime. You better watch out for that.”

 

    “Oh, she can’t pick me up, my partner’s the jealous type.” I deadpan. He laughs. “You brought over sheet music?”

 

    “I did.”

 

    And now, I mean… And now here we are, and it feels even more ridiculous I should have been nervous before, because, well, it’s us. And it feels so easy to joke and to move around each other, and to just _be_. I could just _be_ with him like this. He grins at the way I play, I grin at the way he sings, and then we’re riffing off each other. We break at some point for his voice, I make him a pot of tea, we carry on… before I know it, it’s past midnight.

 

    “I’ll get the couch made up for you.” I offer, and it’s not at all awkward, I’m not at all nervous. It’s normal, and it’s normal when he thanks me. It’s normal to say goodnight through the door and to see each other in the morning, like when he was living here…

 

    I really wish I could just move him back in. I don’t know where he is right now but I don’t care for it, sight unseen. Either it’s not a very nice place, and he ought to be somewhere nicer, or it’s too nice and I’d worry about how he got there… but there’s not really room here. He can’t live on a couch, even a not very nice place is better than a couch, isn’t it?

 

\---/-/---

 

    I was premature in thinking everything was going to be easy and normal, with the rehearsals. Oh, it had been the first time. And the second time, it starts out that way. We run through ‘I Got A Lot of Livin’ To Do’ and ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ and ‘Feeling Good’ and ‘You’re the Top’, and some of the other things we’d played around with just because we both thought we knew a song. And we have a natural sort of chemistry, I think, which certainly could be misconstrued. We play it up for our imaginary audience and I imagine they would believe us as a couple.

 

    I decide not to imagine people believing us as a couple, very early in. It muddies things up when I need to focus on the piano playing first.

 

    Then he slides the Peggy Lee number onto the music shelf, and I start playing without really thinking about it. I think about it when he slides a finger under my chin and I have to play a moment by ear and memory-- and I don’t know it quite well enough for that-- as he croons ‘you let other women make a fool of you’ while gazing into my eyes, and the only word for any of it is ‘sultry’ and I never…

 

    I mean, he’s handsome, he’s charming, I always knew these things about E.L., I knew that before I knew his name. ‘Sultry’ is…

 

    Nothing’s ever prepared me for ‘sultry’.

 

    He _winks_ at me on ‘why don’t you do right’ and turns on his heel, and he _struts_ , his hips are very involved in the _strut_ , as far as the space of my living room allows. He has to turn and strut back when he hits the front door, trails a hand along my shoulders, and I botch the song like I’ve never botched before.

 

    “You need a break?”

 

    “A break wouldn’t hurt.” I nod.

 

\---/-/---

 

    The club isn’t so bad, really. I’m nervous as hell heading in, and E.L.’s jaw is tight and we don’t quite look at each other between the car and the back door, but once we’re on, we’re on. The not-so-mild-mannered Frank Rosewood drifts in two songs into our set with Big Tony Rinetti, and I _know_ Big Tony Rinetti. Not personally, but you read about crime as much as I read about crime and a few names stick with you and Rinetti’s is one of them.

 

    The two of them are cozy. Other patrons dance and flirt and flit around from partner to partner, until it’s almost dizzying, or at least I feel dizzy. But Frank and Tony only have eyes for each other.

 

    I feel almost bad about it. I mean… they’re violent criminals-- well, Rinetti is for sure, Rinetti would make the blood in your veins freeze solid, Frank Rosewood’s a nobody, but he’s a nobody who works for the mob, which makes him some kind of a criminal, anyway, but…

 

    They look like they’re in love. And Mrs. Marianne Rosewood hired me and we need the money, I know we do, but…

 

    I’ve never seen two men in love before. I never…

 

    I’ve been so _afraid_ of…

 

    I can’t think about them and play at the same time, I can’t think about the moral quandaries in doing this kind of work. I know we have to keep afloat, it’s not all catching murderers and jewel thieves, sometimes it’s the ugly business of infidelities and embezzelments… I’d say it’s not all mobsters, but, well…

 

    I can’t allow myself to become distracted, that’s key. I can’t think about Frank-and-Tony or Marianne, when I’m establishing my cover. I can’t think about what might go wrong and I can’t think about what might go right, I have a piano to focus on, I have to think about being undercover, I have to think…

 

    I have to think about E.L., and the way he slides his hand along my jaw during ‘I Got A Lot Of Livin’ To Do’, and the sparkle in his eyes, and the way he changes ‘girls’ to ‘boys’, when he sings about who may or may not be ripe for the kissing, and maybe I play my part too well.

 

    His lips ghost past my cheek, and my heart hammers against my sternum like a drum major on a heavy dose of caffeine.

 

    “You’ve got the camera?” He whispers.

 

    “Yes.”

 

    “When we go on break, you’re gonna ask that friendly bartender to take our picture by the piano. If our friends don’t move from their booth, they’ll be in the background.”

 

    “Right. If they get cagey about being in the background, well… who are we going to show the pictures to anyway?”

 

    “Exactly.” He pulls away with a grin. We start up the next song. And this time he’s got all the room in the world to strut, and I watch him go from table to table, doling out charming smiles and little touches, and just the pleasure of a good look at him and the graceful way he moves.

 

    Silly to feel any way at all, especially jealous, when I’d had him doing the same thing in my living room, to me. When I don’t… I don’t think about him like that, I can’t think about him like that, except I do-- except something about him has always… Even when I couldn’t stand him, when I thought of him as nothing but a thief and a liar and a conman and the personal source of all my troubles, there was something about him I couldn’t put out of my mind, and now… now! Now he’s E.L., my partner, the… the sometimes-hero of my story, when I’m not my own.

 

    I don’t think anyone else sees the falter, the way he has to steel himself, before he reaches Frank Rosewood’s table. Mobsters… I can’t really blame him. I can’t hear what he says, just the easy, charming body language and his laugh carrying back to me, as he tosses off a little flattery or flirtation during an instrumental break, and then he’s coming back my way, and the look he flashes me alone is enough to let me know that being in Big Tony Rinetti’s presences is just as unsettling as you might guess looking at his rap sheet.

 

    I nod and jerk my head towards the bar, and I tackle ‘I Fall In Love Too Easily’ solo. I don’t have E.L.’s voice, but I’m not so bad. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he drinks something down. When he saunters back over to the piano looking right as rain, he has a drink in hand.

 

    “Shirley Temple.” He murmurs-- again, in my ear, again, there goes my heart-- as he sets it on top of the piano.

 

    “Thanks.” I smile. The man knows me… I’m not the kind of hard-boiled detective who drinks while he’s on the case. Or… much ever, really. More a ginger ale man. In this case with grenadine, but… Well, just… more the kind of careful, sober type. Not very Mark Savage of me, I know, but it keeps me out of trouble.

 

    He snags the cherry out of my drink with a grin, and I let him. A man gives you the kind of grin he gives me, and you let him take a lot of cherries.

 

    He takes the microphone up again and does a little patter, asks a couple of handsome men where they’re from and makes a couple of dirty jokes, a couple of which I’d never heard, a couple of which would make a sailor blush out to the ends of his ears, but he does it so charmingly, and the men like it, and Frank-and-Tony laugh, the important thing is that Frank-and-Tony think of us as charming and harmless. It gives me some time to finish my own drink, before we start up the music again. A couple more songs and then we can try and get that photograph…

 

    The bartender takes one of us both, and then I snap one of E.L., leaning against the piano and looking… well, charming. Just to make sure I really do have Frank-and-Tony in the background, just to be sure. After that, we have the second half of our set, and it’s not until the wee small hours of the morning that we slip out of the club and right into trouble.

 

    There’s a knife at E.L.’s throat before I can act, and once that’s happened, there’s nothing I can do. It’s no time to bring up a black belt in karate, even I know that, contrary to what he might imply.

 

    There are ugly words I’m prepared for, as I offer to slowly reach for my wallet, but they’re not the ones I hear. And then, there’s a bellowing shout from the end of the alley, and I grab tight to E.L. and wonder how quickly an ambulance would come if we needed it here, but our assailants are run off, and E.L.’s throat remains unperforated. I could kiss him, I could kiss whoever saved, us, I could… I could use a place to sit down and another Shirley Temple, given that I’m not about to knock back something stronger before driving.

 

    My heart is still pounding like a percussion ensemble when I take in our unlikely saviors. Frank and Tony, the latter panting slightly, knife gleaming in his hand. A knife he would have used if he had had to, a knife he’s still thinking about using, if the look on his face is any indication, even though the hoodlums have fled.

 

    “You boys hurt any?” Frank asks. He brushes E.L.’s jacket off and straightens his lapels. Tony is still staring after the retreating ruffians who had harassed us. They turn a corner and he keeps on watching.

 

    “We’re fine, thanks, man.” E.L. nods. He’s still breathing a little hard himself, I can feel how twitchy he is, and he doesn’t rattle easy, but then, he never does enjoy dealing with the mob. He was able to work himself up to the brief interaction he’d had with them inside the bar, but it’s different to suddenly find yourself face to face with a mobster, and we’re both still rattled by that confrontation.

 

    I mean, we’re certainly no slouches, in the physical confrontation department! But there’s a big difference between a couple of big rough types looking to throw a punch, and a couple of big rough types who are armed, who knock you off balance before you can do anything, well…

 

    It was different. We’ve been on the wrong end of our fair share of revolvers, and it never feels good, but tonight’s all been different.

 

    And for once, we have the mob to thank for getting us out of it. That part’s very different.

 

    “You need anything? How about you, sweetheart?” Frank turns from E.L. to me, pats my cheek, and I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be one of those mob affectations or if it’s the kind of gesture you make, one guy right outside a gay club to another.

 

    “We’re all right-- again, thank you.”

 

    “Can we walk you to a car somewhere?”

 

    E.L. says no and I say yes at the same time. He shoots me a look, I shrug, Frank and Tony walk us to my car.

 

    “You okay to drive?” Tony asks, and I nod. “Okay, you boys stay safe.”

 

    I take E.L. back to my place, when he doesn’t give me directions to anyplace else, and we both wind up pacing around the living room, where there’s really no room for it, but somehow we manage not to be all on top of each other, for the brief moment before we realize the futility of it and come to a stop.

 

    He looks me in the eye and starts shaking his head.

 

    “Oh no. Lionel, don’t you look at me like that. I know that look.”

 

    “I don’t know what you mean.”

 

    “You think we should give Miss Marianne--”

 

    “Missus--”

 

    “You think we should give her her deposit back!”

 

    “They saved our lives!”

 

    “We could have gotten out of it.” He snaps.

 

    “There was a knife against your _neck_!”

 

    “We’re not taking ourselves off this case.”

 

    “A case I didn’t want to take in the first place! It’s sleazy, it’s sordid--”

 

    “It’s _money_. It’s money, Lionel, and we need money. Maybe principles alone can keep _you_ warm at night, but even you need to _eat_. Besides, that guy is with the mob! You’re the one who said mobsters were, by definition, not good people. You really want to give up a nice payday-- for work we already did!-- to protect a mobster? The guy who puts guys like you in a concrete overcoat? Isn’t that what you said?”

 

    It sounds like something I’d have said… but they did save our lives, the exact opposite of how most mafia encounters tend to go, and I can’t ignore that.

 

    “Maybe he’s not all bad.” I argue, ignoring the scoffing he aims my way. “He wouldn’t have saved our lives if he wasn’t, deep down, somewhere inside him, good. Society turned its back on him, so he turns his back on society. They paint him as a criminal, what choice does he have but a life of crime?”

 

    “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

 

    “Yes, painted as a criminal for the-- the circumstances of his birth! One look at him and people think they know what kind of a man he is, well maybe they know some things, but he was a boy with hopes and dreams, once!”

 

    “One look at him and people think he’s a mild-mannered accountant, Lionel! This is the guy you want to extend the benefit of the doubt to, a violent mobster?”

 

    “A man just doing what he needs to do to survive in a cold world, a cruel world. Does he not deserve some compassion, does he not deserve to be loved? A good man, trapped by circumstance, needs only be given the chance to turn his life around!”

 

    “Tony’s got loving him covered. And no, people don’t change easy like that. He’s a mobster. A criminal. A killer--”

 

    “He does their books, he’s not an enforcer--”

 

    “He’s sure cozy enough with killing.”

 

    “He could have been somebody, if things had been different for him once, he could have been a-- a… a salesman, a lawyer, a movie star, he could have been a law-abiding citizen if he wasn’t pushed, pre-judged, left with no outlet for his natural talent and ambition but this, crime! In a world that’s already criminalized him for who he is, for things he can’t help and shouldn’t ever be made to want to help!”

 

    “Maybe he could have been someone else’s accountant. Tony, now Tony could be in the movies, he’d be the bad guy’s favorite henchman, that’s what Tony could have been. Frank couldn’t sell me a glass of ice water in the Sahara. Somewhere there’s a guy who’s everything about being an accountant personified, and he thinks Frank could stand to be more charismatic.”

 

    “Now you’re being mean.”

 

    “He’s an accountant, and he could have been a normal, non-criminal accountant, but he chose the mob and that makes him a bad person. But a guy saves your life and suddenly you don’t care that he’s in the mob, even though any other case and you’d be ripping him to shreds. And suddenly you don’t care if he’s gay, when that used to terrify you.”

 

    “I’m not terrified of gay people.”

 

   “Oh, really?” E.L. folds his arms, eyebrows heading for his hairline.

 

    “It would be ridiculous for me to be terrified of gay people.”

 

    “Well, Mister Ridiculous, I don’t know what else to call your nervous act about this case, but it sure seems like you are.”

 

    “Well I’m not.”

 

    “Look me in the eye and say that.”

 

    “Well I’m not.” I do. He holds my gaze a long moment before sighing and shaking his head. “I’m not!”

 

    “Sure, not until they might flirt with you or ask you to dance, or heaven forbid want to take you to bed, and then I bet you’re terrified. See, you flinched.”

 

    “You don’t understand.” I wrap my arms around myself, look down at my feet.

 

    “No, I guess I don’t.”  

 

    “What if a man wanted to take you to bed, you-- you wouldn’t mind?”

 

    “No. I might have to let him down easy if he’s not my type, but I don’t mind. I don’t get a flop sweat and start shaking.”

 

    I sit down heavy on the couch. I almost don’t actually hit the couch, and as it is I land too far forward, collapse back into it in a way that puts a crick in my spine, and I think I’m just old enough to feel that kind of thing in the morning.

 

    “You look at him the same way after that?” I ask.

 

    “Sure.” E.L. drops down gracefully at the other end of the couch. Out of the corner of my eye I can see his legs crossing the second before he hits the cushion. The effortless grace of him. I think of the way he’d _moved_ when he was performing, how even when he wasn’t performing he’d crossed the room like a dancer, and if I asked him where he learned to move like that even now I couldn’t be sure I’d be getting an honest answer. After the couple of years we’ve worked together, I mean, I think he mostly is honest with me. Where it counts, he is, or I believe he means to be, or when he isn’t I think he thinks it’s for my own good, but being a man’s partner a couple years doesn’t mean he owes you his life story, and being honest with me about the here and now doesn’t mean I’d get the story about the then and how.

 

    “I’m not afraid of what other men want.” I say. Or I try to. Half my voice seems to stay stuck in my throat. “It’s usually not me. It’s never been me, before-- But if it was, that wouldn’t terrify me.”

 

    I feel him shift, and I can’t look up. I don’t want to be let down easy. I don’t want to spend the rest of our association wondering if that ‘sure’ was a lie, because one way or another surely everything would change. If I said, if he knew, that I wanted…

 

    “So who are you afraid of, Lionel?” He asks, and his voice is soft and low, the kind of voice that winds its way around your eardrum and makes you want to do all kinds of things to whoever just wrapped your name up in it. Things you can’t do to your partner, things you could want to do to the dame who walks into your office begging you to solve all her problems, but not your partner, and I’m on my feet, I’m at the piano in about two strides, because I know exactly what I’m afraid of, only... “It isn’t me, is it?”

 

    I turn back, stricken. I mean, of course in hindsight I can see how my flight from the couch might have sent the wrong message, but…

 

    “What? No! Never-- What? E.L.-- Oh, no, no, I-- I mean, hell, if anything, _you_ should--”

 

    Oh.

 

    No.

 

    That’s too much, that’s too much, and I spin around to face the wall, hand clamped over my mouth, see him rise in the reflection on a glass picture frame, with all the same grace he’d sat down with, light and sinuous as a cat when he moves to join me.

 

    “If anything, I…?” He reaches up, putting a hand on my shoulder, warm and solid and gentle, right over the spot where… “Lionel, I’m not afraid of _you_. You afraid of you?”

 

    “E.L., I…”

 

    “Come on, look at me. Tell me all about it, honey. Was I a little hard on you back there?”

 

    I shake my head, but I turn a little, I look at him a little. And his hand shifts to stay on my shoulder with me turned.

 

    “Because maybe I was a little defensive, when I thought you had a problem with gay people.” He continues, the both of us just standing there eyeing each other warily, his thumb circling the scar right through my jacket.

 

    “I don’t have a problem with other gay people.” I say. The other jams itself in my craw a little, but I get the word out. Let it never be said that Lionel Whitney shies away from the hard things, from frightening prospects and moments of quiet bravery. If it came down to it, I think I’d take another bullet before I’d voice that ‘other’ under any circumstances but these.

 

    “Good. I’d hate for us to have a problem.”

 

    The breath I take feels like the first I’ve had all night.

 

    I want to take him in my arms. I want to kiss him. But all he’s done is intimate as much as I have that we’re both of us gay, not that there’s an… not that there’s any kind of a personal interest between us. To him, maybe we’re just friends. Friends who both like other men, and that’s… nice, and of course I’d be happier with that understanding than without it if I’m not at all his type, and why should I be his type? Only… only, _boy_ , do I want him. I don’t know how to talk about how I want him. How do men talk about wanting each other? He’s not a dame with ruby lips and gams that don’t quit and all the kinds of things I know how to put words around and know how to play at wanting. But… wanting those things is part of the narrative, part of pretending I could be a Mark Savage type, part of seeing myself as the hero of my own story and not…

 

    Not some frightened bystander, skinny and limp-wristed and saying ‘he went that-a-way’ and disappearing from the narrative entirely, not some object of mild scorn. A man’s man, but not that kind of man’s man.

 

    How do you talk about the way a man is beautiful? I’ve read detective books by women and they don’t really go into the same kinds of things about men, even when the detective is a lady. Well not in the ones I’ve read, but as far as I’ve found, lady detectives in books are elderly women with keen hearing and bags of knitting, not exactly hard-boiled and highly-sexed. The mysteries might be well-crafted, but I’m just not engaged in the fantasy. Anyway, even among hard-boiled types, they’re not all created equal. I mean, I love Mark Savage, but I don’t like Mike Hammer. A few others I could take or leave depending.

 

    And mostly, I want to be Mark Savage, I do. But I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times when I hit the part where he takes a girl in his arms and don’t I just picture myself on the other side of it… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t crave a man like that as much as I crave being him. Quick-thinking and tough in a fight and quick on his feet, street smart and able to read people like an open book, always knowing just what to say-- and if there’s no right thing to say to get out of a scrape, having a witty bon mot that’s smart enough to be worth a sock in the jaw. A man who’s been around the block and had his heart stepped on once or twice, who’s seen the worst of people, and who still cares too much to walk away, even when the chips are down…

 

    A man, as it turns out, almost exactly like E.L., who could have walked away from a lot of trouble with me-- who has walked away, even, only to walk right back. Who, for all the times he tells me people are bad, well… he’s still always right there with me. Tells me to walk away and sticks by my side when I don’t.

 

    He’s looking at my shoulder, not my face. Looking at the path his thumb traces around the outline of my scar. I don’t think he can feel it through my jacket and all, I think he must go by memory, there where it’s not an even little circle.

 

    I reach for him, the heel of my hand resting at his jaw, thumb stroking his cheek, fingers wrapping around the side of his neck… He’s so warm, and I can only dream of what it would be like, if I dared… For now, at least, I’m still only dreaming. Suddenly the night seems full of new possibilities.

 

    “You and me have a problem? Never.”

 

    “Oh, never?” His gaze slides up to meet mine, slow smile curling across his lips. “Hm, that doesn’t sound right… Do I get to hold you to this from now on?”

 

    “No schemes, no scams.” I clarify. Though… it’s been a while, really, since there’s been anything truly objectionable on that front. “But… no problem-- you know, I mean-- about this. About… us.”

 

    “So you go both ways, huh? I’ll admit, I didn’t see that coming. I’m usually pretty good at picking up on a vibe, but…”

 

    I shake my head, and watch his easy smile falter into something softly sympathetic.

 

    “Really?” He says. “Lionel ‘fall in love with every girl I ever met’ Whitney, Lionel ‘how could I take this beautiful woman’s money for services rendered’ Whitney… and all that’s an act? Baby, you’re wasted on all this up front business, you should be undercover all the time.”

 

    “I am undercover all the time. Just in regular life.” I scratch at my forehead, shrugging.

 

    He snorts, nodding. “Yeah, yeah. I dig that. I mean… not that I’ve never been moved by a pretty face, but… I’ve got some preferences I don’t advertise.”

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “Oh, you know.” He says, and his eyes slide over me, and the possibilities grow ever wider and more promising. “I’m a sucker for a pair of big, brown eyes. Doesn’t hurt if he’s real tall. Maybe a man who’s… good with his hands. Course, I usually wind up falling for some real virtuous type, and then I figure I’m probably out of luck, but… if you know someone who fits the bill, and you think he wouldn’t mind a troublemaker like me, maybe you’ll point him my way.”

 

    “Oh, E.L., I don’t think you’re a troublemaker.” I shake my head, breathless. No more the smooth Savage type, me. An easy act to put on with the kind of girl who wants you to be one, but I feel distinctly more like the kind of quivering-and-sighing dame lining up to fall into an intrepid PI’s arms tonight.

 

    “Yeah? How much trouble have I put you in since we met?”

 

    “I think we’re about even, but who’s keeping score?”

 

    “Mm, maybe you’ve got a point there. And what’s your type, Lionel? What do you picture on those cold and lonely nights?”

 

    I’ve been in love before. Once or twice, to different degrees. I wouldn’t say I have a type, exactly. Not a physical type-- there’s vast oceans of differences between the three notable loves of my life, where looks are concerned. Davey Shulmann, who looked about like I did, when we were knobby-kneed and gangly teenage boys with few other friends before finding ourselves, hitting our strides. I never called it what it was then, it was only friendship, admiration, for a boy who was screamingly funny and so much surer of himself than I was then, who I saw blossom into someone more social, more smooth, more… More. We’d lost touch going off to different colleges, and there had been a string of less meaningful crushes on other friends, and then Marty… Marty, who I’d invented fictions to avoid facing my feelings for, a troublemaker if you asked our boss, but a sweetheart, really, really he was… And E.L.. And maybe when it comes to the physical, I haven’t got a type, but I’m done being so willfully blind as to ignore what’s right in front of me. I like a man who can make me smile, when I haven’t got many reasons to. I like a rulebreaker, a little more than I think I should, for how much I do still like rules… there’s something in that, probably.

 

    Of course I don’t say any of that, no. When E.L. asks me what my type is, I have exactly one word for him, and it comes out more sentimental than playful, and maybe a little scared.

 

    “You.” I answer, and then whichever one of us starts it, we’re kissing, and for a beautiful moment, I’ve got nothing in the world to be scared of.


End file.
